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2010: The City & The City

Books like 2010: The City & The City

30 science fiction books to read after 2010: The City & The City, by Miéville, China, the closest match first.

  1. Blindsight

    Firefall book 1 Start here

    1. Blindsight

    by Peter Watts

    • On the same lists

    A group of freaks (who are also astronauts) are sent on a one way mission to investigate a mysterious object that appears at the edge of human space. Atmospheric and creepy.

    This novel has been hailed as one of the best hard sf stories written this century. It's an awesome novel, packed with invention and new ideas and challenges to the...

  2. Air: Or, Have Not Have

    2. Air: Or, Have Not Have

    by Geoff Ryman

    • On the same lists

    An award winning novel concerned with information technology and its potential for change.

    The internet changed our lives in ways that, even now, we probably don't fully appreciate. But what is the effect of the internet? To what extent are we different from...

  3. Perdido Street Station

    New Crobuzon book 1 Start here

    3. Perdido Street Station

    by Miéville, China

    • Same author

    The cycle blends multiple genres, including Steampunk, Sci Fi, and Horror. Magic is commonplace and practiced by skilled professionals.

    The famous (or infamous, depending how you view the New Weird movement) novel is generally considered one of the founding pillars of the New Weird genre. This novel meets many...

  4. The Windup Girl (2010)

    4. The Windup Girl (2010)

    by Bacigalupi, Paolo

    • On the same lists

    In a future Bangkok, walled in against rising seas and kept alive by a ruthless seed bank, the world's calories are controlled by a few giant corporations. Anderson Lake poses...

  5. Revelation Space

    Revelation Space book 1 Start here

    5. Revelation Space

    by Alastair Reynolds

    • On the same lists

    A complex novel that postulates many different lifeforms who struggle against ancient, machine-like intelligences seeking to destroy all new organic life.

    Throughout its history, one of the strongest and most interesting aspects of science fiction has been its use in satire. And this is just about the most stunning of contemporary...

  6. The Atrocity Exhibition

    6. The Atrocity Exhibition

    by J. G. Ballard

    • On the same lists

    Whenever you put a list of books together, you'll always get disagreements. But this could well be the most controversial choice of all, because J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition has...

  7. The Handmaid's Tale

    7. The Handmaid's Tale

    by Margaret Atwood

    • On the same lists

    An award winning, Canadian novel that explores themes of women in subjugation and agency in a futuristic theocracy.

    Throughout its history, one of the strongest and most interesting aspects of science fiction has been its use in satire. And this is just about the most stunning of contemporary...

  8. Lord Of Light

    8. Lord Of Light

    by Zelazny, Roger

    • On the same lists
    Hugo winner 1968

    Clones and transfer technology make the doctrine of reincarnation a literal truth.

    Zelazny may be famous in the fantasy world for his Amber series, but his best work may just be his stand alone novel, Lord of Light. It's a work that's...

  9. Flowers For Algernon (1967)

    9. Flowers For Algernon (1967)

    by Keyes, Daniel

    • On the same lists

    Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes won the 1967 Nebula Award for Best Novel along with Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany. This is the only time since the start of...

  10. We Were Liars

    10. We Were Liars

    by E. Lockhart

    • On the same lists

    In the early 1920s, the manuscript of Zamiatin's novel, We, was smuggled out of Soviet Russia to be published in the West. One of the people who reviewed that novel...

  11. Slaughterhouse-five

    11. Slaughterhouse-five

    by Kurt Vonnegut

    • On the same lists

    Billy Pilgrim was unstuck in time. It sounds like a fairly conventional time travel story. But this is Kurt Vonnegut, and nothing he wrote was ever conventional. In fact, the...

  12. Dhalgren

    12. Dhalgren

    by Delany, Samuel R.

    • On the same lists

    NOTE: THIS IS #26 on the TOP 100 LIST. The first 1-25 entries are found on THE TOP 25 BEST SCIENCE FICTION LIST. Dhalgren is one of the peculiarities of...

  13. Pavane

    13. Pavane

    by Keith Roberts

    • On the same lists

    Pavane is a sequence of linked stories set in the 1960s in a world in which the Spanish Armada had succeeded, Catholicism had defeated Protestantism, and the Church ruled Britain...

  14. The Scar

    New Crobuzon book 2

    14. The Scar

    by Miéville, China

    • Same author

    When his mother dies, a little boy is angry at his loss but does everything he can to hold onto the memory of her scent, her voice, and the special...

  15. Iron Council

    New Crobuzon book 3

    15. Iron Council

    by Miéville, China

    • Same author

    Following Perdido Street Station and The Scar, acclaimed author China Miéville returns with his hugely anticipated Del Rey hardcover debut. With a fresh and fantastical band of characters, he carries...

  16. Embassaytown

    16. Embassaytown

    by Miéville, China

    • Same author

    Set on a small colony on a civilized alien planet—this story is mostly about language.

    Set on a small colony on a civilized alien planet—this story is mostly about language.

  17. A Canticle For Leibowitz

    17. A Canticle For Leibowitz

    by Jr., Walter M. Miller

    • On the same lists
    Hugo winner 1961

    After a nuclear war monks preserve civilization.

    A Canticle for Leibowitz follows the rejuvenation of "civilization" after a devastating nuclear holocaust. It has three distinctive chapters, each one disconnected by centuries, focusing on life at a desert...

  18. 2312 (2013)

    18. 2312 (2013)

    by Robinson, Kim Stanley

    • On the same lists

    Society has spread across the solar system. The society is nonbinary and gender and sexuality are thought of fluidly. In this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, present, and future.

    In the 24th century, humanity has spread through the solar system to hollowed-out asteroids, Mercury's moving city and the terraformed worlds. When Alex, the grandmother who raised her, dies, Swan...

  19. Light

    Light book 1 Start here

    19. Light

    by M. John Harrison

    • On the same lists

    M. John Harrison's The Centauri Device (1974) was a new wave space opera that was acknowledged as a major influence by writers as varied as Iain M. Banks and China...

  20. The Islanders

    20. The Islanders

    by Priest, Christopher

    • On the same lists

    In the late-70s, Christopher Priest wrote a series of stories about the Dream Archipelago, a string of islands that represent neutral territory for the warring nations of the northern continent....

  21. The Quiet War Series

    21. The Quiet War Series

    by Paul Mcauley

    • On the same lists

    The British Boom has been all about reinventing older forms of science fiction, making them fit for the new century, and no-one has done that better than Paul McAuley. The...

  22. Jack Glass The Story Of A Murderer

    22. Jack Glass The Story Of A Murderer

    by Adam Roberts

    • On the same lists

    Ever since his first novel, Salt (2000), Adam Roberts has established himself as one of the most prolific, challenging, and popular novelists writing in science fiction today. His work often...

  23. Passage

    23. Passage

    by Willis, Connie

    • On the same lists

    Immortality, cryogenics, uploading the mind to an AI, extended lifespans, time and again science fiction revolves around the issue of how to avoid death. In this novel, which won the...

  24. Song Of Stone

    24. Song Of Stone

    by Iain Banks

    • On the same lists

    One of the abiding themes of science fiction in the early twenty-first century is a careful delineation of everyday life in the near future, a future in which the steady...

  25. The Execution Channel

    25. The Execution Channel

    by Ken Macleod

    • On the same lists

    Ken MacLeod is perhaps the most politically astute novelist working in Britain today. He brings a highly critical left-wing sensibility to his work, while at the same time being very...

  26. The Yiddish Policemen's Union

    26. The Yiddish Policemen's Union

    by Chabon, Michael

    • On the same lists
    Hugo winner 2008 Nebula winner 2007

    What if the State of Israel was destroyed? They would live in Alaska.

    In this book, Chabon created a world where Israel had never been founded after World War II. Instead the state of displaced Jews is located in Sitka, Alaska. Chabon used...

  27. Ancillary Justice (2014)

    Imperial Radch book 1 Start here

    27. Ancillary Justice (2014)

    by Leckie, Ann

    • On the same lists

    Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie (Book 1 in the Imperial Radch trilogy) won the 2014 Nebula Award for Best Novel. 

  28. Ender's Game (1986)

    The Ender Quintet book 1 Start here

    28. Ender's Game (1986)

    by Card, Orson Scott

    • On the same lists

    The first in a famous series that seems to become more literary as its characters age. Follows a child prodigy and in the process makes the reader think about war, the means to war, and even loneliness.

    Earth has survived two invasions by an insect-like alien race, and the International Fleet is training the most gifted children to lead the next defence. Six-year-old Andrew "Ender" Wiggin is...

  29. The Wanderer

    29. The Wanderer

    by Leiber, Fritz

    • On the same lists
    Hugo winner 1965

    The Wanderer

  30. Dying Inside

    30. Dying Inside

    by Silverberg, Robert

    • On the same lists

    Despite his credentials championing hard, rational science fiction, John W. Campbell was a fervent believer in psi powers. Perhaps because of that, whenever telepathy appeared in science fiction, as in...

Matches come from series and authors, from the lists the books share, and from the books readers open together. They are rebuilt every night. Back to 2010: The City & The City.

The shortlist

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